Tyler is inaugurated as 10th president

Author

Website Name

Year Published

Title

URL

Access Date

March 03, 2015

Publisher

A+E Networks

On this day in 1841, John Tyler is sworn in as president. Tyler was elected as William Harrison’s vice president earlier in 1841 and was suddenly thrust into the role of president when Harrison died one month into office. He was the first vice president to immediately assume the role of president after a sitting president’s untimely exit and set the precedent for succession thereafter.

Tyler was a proponent of states’ rights and the perpetuation of slavery, and as such was a threat to his own political party, the Whigs, who advocated a strong federal system. When Tyler vetoed his fellow Whigs’ attempt to reestablish the National Bank, most of his cabinet resigned and he was thrown out of the Whig Party. As he had previously alienated the support of the Democrats by denouncing Andrew Jackson’s policies, Tyler became a president without a party who received death threats from both sides and earned the enmity of Congress. His four years in office were contentious, though he is credited with settling Canadian border disputes with Britain and beginning the annexation of Texas.

In 1844, during a cruise down the Potomac aboard the newly commissioned steam frigate USS Princeton, Tyler himself narrowly escaped death. The ship’s state-of-the-art cannon, called the Peacemaker, exploded when the crew fired a celebratory salute, killing several people aboard, including two members of Tyler’s cabinet and his future wife’s father. Tyler’s unexpected ascendance to the presidency and the near-miss aboard the Princeton earned him the nickname of His Accidency.

After leaving the White House, Tyler tried to broker a peace convention between the North and South on the eve of the Civil War, but failed to reach an agreement with Abraham Lincoln on key issues. Denounced as a traitor by the North, Tyler fell in line with southern secessionists and, in 1861, was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives. He died in 1862.

Also on this day

On April 6, 1896, the Olympic Games, a long-lost tradition of ancient Greece, are reborn in Athens 1,500 years after being banned by Roman Emperor Theodosius I. At the opening of the Athens Games, King Georgios I of Greece and a crowd of 60,000 spectators welcomed athletes from 13 nations...

On this day in 1776, the Continental Congress takes the first step toward American independence by announcing their decision to open all American ports to international trade with any part of the world that is not under British rule.
It was the first act of independence by the Continental Congress...

Emil Jellinek, an entrepreneur who commissioned engineer Wilhelm Maybach to design the first Mercedes automobile, named after Jellinek’s daughter, is born in Leipzig, Germany, on this day in 1853.
Jellinek was a successful businessman in 1897, when he bought a car from Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft, an engine and auto company founded...

The Civil War explodes in the west as the armies of Union General Ulysses S. Grant and Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston collide at Shiloh, near Pittsburgh Landing in Tennessee. The Battle of Shiloh became one of the bloodiest engagements of the war, and the level of violence shocked North...

U.S. and Soviet diplomats meeting in Washington, D.C., make significant progress in negotiations concerning the role to be played by the newly reunified Germany in Europe. U.S. Secretary of State James Baker and Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze carried out most of the negotiations. Both sides approached the meeting with...

On this day in 1970, Sam Sheppard, a doctor convicted of murdering his pregnant wife in a trial that caused a media frenzy in the 1950s, dies of liver failure. After a decade in prison, Sheppard was released following a re-trial. His story is rumored to have loosely inspired the...

A train drops off a bridge in Tangua, Brazil, killing 110 people on this day in 1950. Twenty-two cars made up the Leopoldina Railways train that departed Rio de Janeiro for Victoria, Espirito Santo. The passenger cars were filled with people vacationing over the Easter holidays. The train left...

In Fayette Township, New York, Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon religion, organizes the Church of Christ during a meeting with a small group of believers.Born in Vermont in 1805, Smith claimed in 1823 that he had been visited by a Christian angel named Moroni who spoke to him of...

On April 6, 1909, American explorer Robert Peary accomplishes a long elusive dream, when he, assistant Matthew Henson, and four Eskimos reach what they determine to be the North Pole. Decades after Peary’s death, however, navigational errors in his travel log surfaced, placing the expedition in all probability a few...

Two days after the U.S. Senate voted 82 to 6 to declare war against Germany, the U.S. House of Representatives endorses the declaration by a vote of 373 to 50, and America formally enters World War I.When World War I erupted in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson pledged neutrality for the...

On this day in 1968, Stanley’s Kubrick’s science-fiction classic 2001: A Space Odyssey makes its debut in movie theaters.
Kubrick had first gained prominence as a director for the World War I-era drama Paths of Glory (1957). After helming the big-budget Roman epic Spartacus (1960), he made a 1962 screen adaptation...

Writer Oscar Wilde is arrested after losing a libel case against the Marquess of Queensberry.
Wilde had been engaged in an affair with the marquess’s son since 1891, but when the outraged marquess denounced him as a homosexual, Wilde sued the man for libel. However, he lost his case when evidence...

In Brighton, England, on April 6, 1974, the judges of the 19th Eurovision Song Contest crushed the hopes of tiny Luxembourg by denying that nation in its bid for a historic third straight victory at the pan-European musical event. Those judges did the rest of the world a favor, however,...

Determined to resist the growing presence of Anglo settlers on traditional tribal lands, the Sauk warrior Black Hawk is drawn into war with the United States.
Called Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak by his people, Black Hawk was born in 1767 in the village of Saukenuk in the present-day state of Illinois. He quickly earned...

On April 6, 1896, the first modern Olympic Games are held in Athens, Greece, with athletes from 14 countries participating.
The International Olympic Committee met for the first time in Paris in June 1984 and chose Greece as the site of the inaugural modern Olympiad. The ancient games are believed to...

National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy drafts and signs National Security Action Memorandum 328 on behalf of President Lyndon B. Johnson. This document came out of National Security Council meetings that were held on April 1 and April 2. The memorandum authorized U.S. personnel to take the offensive in South Vietnam...

Clear weather for the first time in three days allows U.S. planes and Navy warships to begin the sustained air strikes and naval bombardments ordered by President Nixon in response to the massive North Vietnamese offensive launched on March 30.
The Nguyen Hue Offensive (later known as the “Easter Offensive”) was...

On April 6, 1917, two days after the U.S. Senate votes 82 to 6 to declare war against Germany, the U.S. House of Representatives endorses the decision by a vote of 373 to 50, and the United States formally enters the First World War.
When World War I erupted in 1914,...

The German air force launches Operation Castigo, the bombing of Belgrade, on this day in 1941, as 24 divisions and 1,200 tanks drive into Greece.
The attack on Yugoslavia was swift and brutal, an act of terror resulting in the death of 17,000 civilians–the largest number of civilian casualties in a...